TV preview: 'The Newsroom' isn't what it could be

Sunday

Jun 24, 2012 at 12:01 AMJun 24, 2012 at 8:15 PM

HBO’s new series, “The Newsroom,” penned by Aaron Sorkin (the Oscar-winning author of “The Social Network”), sucks you into what promises to be a scathing satire of politicians and the Fourth Estate, seemingly working in cahoots to pull the wool over the eyes of a gullible citizenry. Then, just when you get all puffed up and invigorated, Sorkin lets the air out.

Al Alexander

Network anchor Will McAvoy makes quite a first impression in HBO’s ballyhooed new series, “The Newsroom,” especially for a guy often compared to Jay Leno for his unmitigated blandness. He’s on a “mad-as-hell” rant to rival Howard Beale after a perky blonde Northwestern journalism student asks him what makes America “the greatest nation in the world.” After hesitating a bit, unsure of whether or not he should respond to such a loaded query, Will (Jeff Daniels) spies an audience member holding up flash cards stating, “It isn’t … but it can be.” The words immediately spark a conflagration, as he venomously begins systematically ticking off every bugaboo plaguing the good ol’ USA from the sorry state of its schools to its inordinate amount of defense spending.

The scene, penned by series creator Aaron Sorkin (the Oscar-winning author of “The Social Network”) and busily directed by Greg Mottola (“Superbad”), effectively stirs your ire toward the addled state of the States. It also instantly sucks you into what promises to be a scathing satire of politicians and The Fourth Estate, seemingly working in cahoots to pull the wool over the eyes of a gullible citizenry. Then, just when you get all puffed up and invigorated, Sorkin lets the air out by allowing his baby to quickly devolve into an “Americans-are-stupid” diatribe flecked up with a series of office romances better suited to an afternoon soap. You wince with every condescending put-down shouted by his talented ensemble of articulate motor mouths, who don’t so much state their opinions as beat you over the head with them.

What’s most disconcerting is how readily Sorkin lets valid points and observations lose their impact under a barrage of self-congratulatory backslapping by our sanctimonious heroes and heroines, who are merely surrogates for Sorkin’s one-man self-admiration society. Humility has never been a Sorkin virtue. He’s more into preaching and chastising. But never has it been as intense as it is in “The Newsroom,” a 10-episode series premiering Sunday night at 10, in which he anoints Daniels’ Will McAvoy America’s savior. In unison with his executive producer and ex-girlfriend, MacKenzie McHale (“Hugo’s” Emily Mortimer), Will forever hence will speak nothing but the truth, because – to paraphrase a famous Sorkin phrase – Americans can’t handle the truth. They need a nursemaid to protect them from “unseen" enemies like big banks, big oil and big mouths like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann spouting support for a tea party agenda that goes against the members’ best interests. And Will is just the snarling, self-involved sexist pig to do it.

I enjoy a flawed hero more than anyone, but Will has zero redeeming qualities. He’s pompous, arrogant and just plain mean, especially toward MacKenzie, whom he can’t seem to forgive for breaking his heart years ago. And this is our “savior”? He’s more like a spoiled brat who can’t see the forest for his ego. Daniels, like the rest of the cast (which mixes veterans like Jane Fonda and Sam Waterston with fresh-faced newcomers Alison Pill, Dev Patel, Thomas Sadoski and John Gallagher Jr), is great at fleshing out his paper-thin caricature, but you never believe him to be anything more than a conduit for Sorkin to set us straight on how he thinks things ought to be. That includes rehashing ancient news stories – the Tea Party takeover of Congress, the shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords, the BP oil spill – so Will and his crew at ACN can report breaking stories “the right way,” like Morrow and Cronkite. You know, like waiting for confirmation before reporting that Giffords is dead, unlike the real cable news channels. Ah, ain’t hindsight great?

The only time “The Newsroom” shows any teeth is in the showdowns between Corporate, overseen by Fonda (doing her best Ted Turner), and the network’s ideologue news director played by Waterston in grand elder statesman mode. Only then does the show dabble in the sordid quid pro quo between politicians and media outlets. You also admire Sorkin’s play for impartiality by making Will a card-carrying “middle-of-the-road” Republican. But it proves to be just lip service on a show that clearly slants toward the left.

As for the sexual politics, they are clearly horizontal, although we never see any onscreen hanky-panky. We do, however, get a lot of newsroom romancing in which Will and MacKenzie freely air their dirty laundry repeatedly – and audibly – in front of their subordinate co-workers. Imagine that happening in your office. At least their “His Girl Friday” banter is passionate, which can’t be said for the budding love triangle between Pill’s upstart production assistant, Margaret (think Peggy Olson from “Mad Men”), and two young hot-shot floor producers (Gallagher and Sadoski) with opposing ideas on what constitutes news. In the four episodes made available for review, the romantic machinations tend woefully toward the rote. Yet, you can’t stop watching, mostly because Sorkin, even when he’s ranting and browbeating, writes some of the most mellifluous dialogue known to man. And, at times, he really makes you think. By Episode 4, he also starts to tone down the rhetoric to the point where you’re almost convinced that the state of “The Newsroom,” like America, isn’t the greatest, but it can be.